Recently, new ways of collaboration and sharing software and information became possible by the development and widespread use of the Internet. At schools, however, it has been observed that caregivers (teachers, special education teachers, therapists, social workers, parents and the like) usually have difficulties in using and adopting computer technologies in classrooms and otherwise to help students with disabilities carry out learning activities. The difficulties stem not just from the lack of access to computer technologies, but also from the lack of a comprehensive and easy-of-use repository of applications, information and activities to help them effectively find and share most relevant solutions for their problem at hand.
In order to address those social and technical challenges, we have been working on the web2gether project that aims to design and develop a web-based system to facilitate the retrieval of adapted technologies to support students with cognitive disabilities and to help the caregivers establish and maintain social networks, which will allow them to share their work, experiences and knowledge. To this end, it is key to understand how they do their work, how (and when) they learn about, choose and acquire new technologies, how they collaborate and share their experiences, and so on, in their working environment. Thus, we have conducted a preliminary field study at school, interviewing and observing the work of a few selected special education teachers. Given what we have learned, we have also started developing the web2gether system based on the notions of computer supported informed participation and comprehension, social & collaborative filtering, collaborative information retrieval, and case-based retrieval. In addition, we are planning a more elaborate and thorough field study, which will involve a series of interviews, social-network activities and observations that will further guide the development of the system.
This talk attempts to convey the initial findings from the field study carried out last Semester, the current design approach for the web2gether system and the overall framework for this research work, which in turn will become the major work for my PhD dissertation.